


Confess Only Your Sins

by stratumgermanitivum, whiskeyandspite



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Blasphemy, Confessional, Dirty Talk, First Kiss, Flirting, Fondling, Frottage, Kissing, M/M, Personal Crisis, Priest AU, Priest Kink, Temptation, handjobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21772168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stratumgermanitivum/pseuds/stratumgermanitivum, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: The first time, Hannibal had been woefully underprepared. He’d had over-sharers before, usually lonely men and women for whom confession was their only chance to talk and know someone was really listening. None of them matched the man.“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been 16 years since my last confession.”“May the Lord be in your heart and help you to confess your sins with true sorrow.”“Wouldn’t He know if I were lying then?” the man asked, and Hannibal had to pause a moment to orient himself again. “That I wasn’t sorrowful in my confessions,” he clarified. Hannibal swallowed.“He will see your contrition, however it may present itself.”“Well, shit, I’m not contrite either,” came the amused answer.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 20
Kudos: 327





	Confess Only Your Sins

**Author's Note:**

> A fun little story based on an image that we just couldn't resist writing up!

The sign was not going to stop him, and Hannibal knew it. He was hopeful, anyway, but no amount of hope or prayer had ever seemed to stop the man. Or to help him. Hannibal had tried everything, rosaries and passage readings, groups set up by the church. He had no way of knowing if the man ever did any of those things, but every Saturday he was back, just after mass, slipping into the confession booth with his lengthy tales and deep, sweet-talking voice. 

Hannibal had no choice but to hear the man’s sins, as one of only two priests in their church. If he did not, the man may never find absolution and salvation, and Hannibal wouldn’t have that.

No matter how much he often felt like he needed a shower after the man left. A very,  _ very  _ cold shower. 

Every single Saturday. For two months. And Hannibal still couldn’t match the voice to the face of any of his parishioners. 

The first time, Hannibal had been woefully underprepared. He’d had over-sharers before, usually lonely men and women for whom confession was their only chance to talk and know someone was  _ really _ listening. None of them matched the man. 

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been 16 years since my last confession.”

“May the Lord be in your heart and help you to confess your sins with true sorrow.”

“Wouldn’t He know if I were lying then?” the man asked, and Hannibal had to pause a moment to orient himself again. “That I wasn’t sorrowful in my confessions,” he clarified. Hannibal swallowed.

“He will see your contrition, however it may present itself.”

“Well, shit, I’m not contrite either,” came the amused answer. “I’m more tired, really. And it’s been a hot minute since I’ve been in here so you’ll forgive me, Father, if I don’t remember which sins are mortal and which are just misdemeanors.”

So Hannibal had listened. To the stories of sodomy and lust, of partaking in alcohol and drugs -  _ caffeine counts as a drug, right? He’s up with the latest scientific studies? _ \- of the man’s sincere desire to do all of it again. What could he possibly say? Hannibal had encountered in his life only a few parishioners who had come to Church under duress, and their confessions had been similarly snide. What could he do besides offer even them the promise of forgiveness?

It seemed paltry to offer the man the rosary, to narrow sixteen years down into a handful of Hail Marys. But forgiveness was Hannibal’s job. To link the common man to God in a way they might otherwise never be granted. 

The man spoke his act of contrition with the well-practiced boredom of those who were brought to Hannibal’s church out of obligation rather than love. 

“I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

“Amen,” said with a hint of amusement, and then the man was gone. Hannibal had held tight to his cassock, resisting the temptation to peek after and see just who of his flock had flooded the booth with such tales, if the man attended church to begin with. Confession was meant to be private, personal, and Hannibal would not let himself be swayed. 

The road of temptation would lead him straight to the city of the damned, should he let it. 

\---

“Have you ever had sex, Father?”

The correct response, of course, would have been to herd the man back to his sins, back to the reason he was here for the fourth Saturday in a row, filling Hannibal’s head with obscenities. 

“Priests take vows of chastity,” Hannibal said instead.

“Unless you popped out of the womb in your little collar, one doesn’t preclude the other. Hell, even then. People lie, Father.”

They did. Hannibal had seen his share of guilty faces staring up at him from the pews. But Hannibal had gone to the church to absolve his own guilt, to toss aside the rolling turmoil of sin that had bubbled black and deadly inside him.

“No. I have never had sex.”

“And if you had, you’d have this convenient little box to wipe it all away.”

“Contrition only works for the  _ contrite _ ,” Hannibal chided. He heard the rustle of fabric as the man shifted, guilt or interest, Hannibal had no way of knowing. 

“I can be contrite. I can be so  _ very _ sorry, Father. I can bend and take my punishment. He liked to have his hands all over me, pinching and scratching. The absolution… I doubt you’ve ever felt anything like it. Shame.”

“If you aren’t here to confess your sins-”

“Sodomy,” the man drawled, “Sodomy, with a man who made me cry, who held me down and filled me up so very slowly, so that I begged him for more.”

Hannibal cleared his throat, trying to mask it as a sound of displeasure. Sodomy was always at the top of his confessor’s list. Followed closely by lustful thoughts, gluttony, and taking the Lord’s name in vain.

“It sounds as though, perhaps, he should be asking for forgiveness himself.”

A low laugh from the other side of the confessional, far too warm, far too pleased. “Oh, I could only imagine his version of confession. ‘I spanked him, and I wanked him, and we had a jolly old time’. He’d be terrible at it. At least I go into detail. Make sure that God’s getting a very clear picture of what’s going on down here.”

“He is all-seeing,” Hannibal reminded the man softly, and was rewarded - was it reward? - with another of those low laughs that warmed him to his bones.

“I’ll start putting more effort into giving Him a good show.”

—

“Doesn’t it get boring in there?”

Hannibal blinked, threaded his fingers together in his lap and didn’t answer. The man beyond sighed heavily and shifted about on the uncomfortable wooden seat.

“You spend all week listening to people who ate too much chocolate, or had a wet dream about Scarlett Johansson, or swore at their parents. Shit happens. This is what humanity is, why should we be sorry for something we’re put on this earth to do?”

“Are we only put here for that?” Hannibal asked him.

“No, I suppose there are other things besides,” the man conceded, the statement open-ended, inviting Hannibal to take the bait, dangling it in front of him as the best kind of temptation.

Hannibal should send him away, should tell him that his sins will be forgiven without him reliving them to Hannibal here, should close up confession entirely, or hire a younger, more energized priest to take it instead. Hannibal took a breath.

“Sodomy?” He asked.

“Two, this time,” the man confirmed, amused. “At each end. Does that fall under greed as well, then? Avarice for courting two men instead of one? Help me out here.”

“Pride, perhaps?” Hannibal suggested, before he could stop himself. There was a pause, and then a low, startled laugh.

“Father, did you just accuse me of being  _ cocky _ ?”

Hannibal’s face burned. Everything did, to be honest, his skin overheating in his cassock, which normally breathed so well.

He had not signed up for hours and hours of petty crimes and pettier jealousies. He had not signed up for being the sole confidant of dozens of people. He had, in all honesty, only signed up at all because it was better than the alternative. In this one instance, starvation had been preferable to gluttony. 

The road to hell was paved with good intentions, and Hannibal felt the flames licking at his skin. 

“I suppose I did. My apologies.”

“Don’t apologize. You weren’t wrong.”

“It’s not my place to judge,” Hannibal corrected, “To offer guidance, yes, and absolution, but never to judge.  _ ‘There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and destroy: who art thou that judgest another?’  _ James, chapter 4, verse 12.”

“No stones to throw from your stained-glass house,” the stranger mused, “but I prefer you honest. Opened up. I  _ welcome _ the intrusion of your thoughts, Father.”

The problem was, Hannibal welcomed the intrusions upon his thoughts as well, welcomed the vile stories, the ardent admissions, the delight the man took in recounting every detail for Hannibal, week to week.

He had started to look forward to Saturdays.

—

“Forgive me, Father, for I can’t give you details of my ever-growing list of sins as you seem to be short on time this evening,”

It was nearly half past five, the time Hannibal had set for confession to be over, hoping to circumvent this routine he had fallen into, and the pleasure he took from it as this confessor tended to take up his time later in the evening.

But here he was.

“I have a new one for you today,” he added, before Hannibal could intervene with the appropriate reply. “New enough, I would think, to peak your interest. Have to keep you and the big guy on your toes, after all.”

The man shifted about, Hannibal heard him set his foot to the confessional wall again, as he’d started doing a few weeks ago, making himself comfortable physically in a space that was meant for spiritual comfort.

“I have found, of late, that I have been coming more often to mass.” the man eventually admitted. Hannibal frowned.

“There is no sin in opening yourself fully to God.”

“No, see, the problem is it’s not Him I want to fully open myself to. Or be opened by, as it were. I come to mass - and often after it, right there in the accessible bathroom down the hall - specifically to have lustful thoughts over the priest here.”

Hannibal’s hands clutched tight to his knees. Hours upon hours of this, sent specifically to tempt him.

“You are a  _ demon _ ,” he hissed.

“No demons here. Just men. Men with the needs and desires given to us, by God or nature, who’s to say?”

Who was to say, indeed? Old doubts had been resurfacing, doubts from Hannibal’s childhood, that whisper of a thought from the very first time he stood before a congregation.

_ You don’t believe this. _

And then, following on its heels,

_ You’re only here because the temptation scared you. _

The voice of the devil, whispering in his ear. There was sometimes more evil in truth than in lies.

_ Being here hasn’t changed a thing about what you want. _

_ Being here hasn’t saved you. _

_ You never thought you needed to be saved, anyway. _

_ Do you even believe…? _

“Get out!” Hannibal snapped, “You make a mockery of me. You make a mockery of this sacrament. I will not play host to your fantasies any longer.”

“Alright,” the man said. He sounded surprised, disappointed. “Forgive me, Father,” said with a modicum of honesty this time. The door swung open, then shut, footsteps on carpet.

_ If he leaves, you will always wonder. _

_ If you let him go, you will be  _ **_stuck here_ ** _ in this  _ **_hell_ ** _ you’ve built for yourself. _

Hannibal pressed his hands to his eyes, felt his pulse beat thick behind his ears, out of time with the footsteps that made their way closer and closer to the door. The door that was locked from the inside, with the stupid note stuck upon it to prevent anyone from imposing on his time, on  _ their _ time -

He swung his own door open, long paces taking Hannibal from the airless box he’d forced himself to suffocate in to the man who was just turning to look over his shoulder, a cigarette already perched between his fingers to light outside.

Vaguely, Hannibal recognized him. Curly hair, thick framed glasses, stubble, flannel, bags under his eyes. He sat at the back, usually. Didn’t take the Eucharist with the others - he often left by then. He never once interrupted, never once laughed inappropriately, never once made his presence anything but unnoticed.

Just his eyes, blue and bright and beautiful, on Hannibal every time he stood to speak.

Eyes that now widened in surprise as Hannibal neared, and closed when Hannibal’s hands set to either side of the man’s face and he kissed him. Rough, uncoordinated, messy, Hannibal stepped closer, crowding this man, this demon, this temptation against the flimsy wooden door. He felt the laugh rather than heard it, just as he felt fingers in his hair, tugging softly, curling behind his ears, cupping the back of his head to keep them pressed together.

“You can’t take it back,” the man warned.

“You’ve been haunting me for weeks,” Hannibal growled, “You don’t want me to take it back.”

“No, I really don’t.” A calloused hand on the back of his neck pulled Hannibal closer. 

“Your name,” Hannibal pleaded, before that soft mouth could take him apart again. 

“Will.” 

Will kissed him gently, a hand on his shoulder, the other curved around the nape of his neck. Hannibal was breathless already, hands tentative over Will’s sides. 

“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” Will said, his smile pressed to Hannibal’s cheek. “It’s okay. I like it.”

There was nowhere, really, to do anything, but Will guided him back to the confessional, sealing them both into the cramped box and straddling Hannibal’s knee. “Like this,” he whispered, guiding Hannibal’s hand up under his shirt. 

Hannibal was not ignorant of the human body, he knew their weight and their essence, he knew his own and the feeling of it.

Will’s was different.

Where Hannibal had hair, Will did not. Where Hannibal was larger, Will was more svelte. And yet, when Hannibal spread his fingers over Will’s belly the other gasped and smiled, pressing closer, letting his fingers slip down Hannibal’s wrist and beneath his sleeve. His pulse spiked. Will brought his leg over to straddle Hannibal properly, his free hand curling in his hair.

“It’s funny,” Will told him, voice quiet, almost respectful of the space they were desecrating. “You feel exactly how I thought you would.”

“What have you thought of?”

“I’ve told you,” Will laughed, arching as Hannibal’s nails gently scratched over his nipples. “Every week, I told you.”

“You told me of others -”

“I told you of what could be, if you let it happen,” Will said, pressing another kiss to the side of Hannibal’s face, taking his lips with his own with a soft moan when Hannibal sought them.

“Lying is a sin,” Hannibal whispered into his mouth.

“So’s this.” Will reached down, cupping Hannibal through his cassock, feeling the way his cock tented the dark fabric, even through his slacks. Hannibal moaned, dragging Will down against him, Will’s arousal hot against his own. 

So many fantasies, so many ideas. Kinks and sweetness, positions swapped each time, but right now, all Hannibal wanted was this. Will’s weight over his thighs, Will’s hands seeking whatever they could feel through the cloth, through Hannibal’s clothes. 

“I want to rip this off you,” Will murmured, “I want to fuck you in its tattered remains and then bring you home with me, let you spread me open. I want to show you everything, Hannibal, let me show you.”

Hannibal moaned his agreement, mouthing wetly down the column of Will’s throat. There wasn’t enough room for either of them to strip, but with a combined effort, they managed to get the cossack up somewhere around Hannibal’s waist, both their pants shoved down just enough. The first touch of Will’s cock against Hannibal’s own was euphoric. 

Automatically, Hannibal started to pray, stopped when Will kissed him deep again with a groan.

“No,” he murmured, adjusting himself just enough to take them both in hand and stroke. “No, I’ll have you close enough so there is no place for God between us. He can watch like He does everyone else.” Will laughed quietly, pressing his moans to Hannibal’s throat as he stroked them both up, a slow and deliberate pace despite neither having the patience for slowness. Hannibal’s hands were everywhere, catching on Will’s hips, moving over the plush of his ass and squeezing. 

“Yes,” a moan, a plea, and Hannibal did it again just to feel Will’s thighs tense and his muscles tighten. Will’s thumb worked over the head of Hannibal’s cock, spreading the slick of their precome over them both.

“Going to make you come,” Will promised breathlessly. “Going to make you come and say my name in prayer instead.”

Hannibal ground up against him, panting whimpers into Will’s skin. His world had rearranged. He wanted to worship this man, breathe praise and tribute against his lips. Nothing had ever felt like this. Nothing else could compare. 

It took very little, in the end, the both of them overwrought from weeks of foreplay. Will bit a claim into Hannibal’s throat, and Hannibal’s voice broke on Will’s name, loud enough to echo out into the room. 

The cassock was ruined, stained with their mingled essences. Will licked their remnants from his hand, dragging another stuttered moan from Hannibal. There was no going back now. Will stirred something within him that he could no longer ignore. 

“What shall our penance be, Father?” Will whispered, nuzzling into Hannibal’s temple, “I have a rosary we could share.”

“Love covereth all sins,” Hannibal murmured.

“Proverbs 10:12.” Will’s smile was a devilish thing, self-satisfied and covetous, “Do you think you could love me, Father?”

“I think you want me to.”

There was no other answer to that than a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to check out more little drabbles and help us decide what to write next, [come hang out on Tumblr](http://www.stratsandwhiskeywritestuff.tumblr.com/) with us!


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